Issue 136 | The Hound: Bog Off Boris

I've been playing video games for ten years now, if not a bit more. In that time I got all A and A* grades in GCSEs with Bs in Maths and Science (subjects that I was never great at), at A Level I got three As in English Literature, English Language and Media Studies. I am now at Cardiff University furthering my studies in English Literature. Stupid am I? My brain rotted? Lacking literacy? Silly Boris...

Indeed, having perused over the forums on this very site it is clear to see a great deal of literacy and intelligence. In threads about exam results I'd say the people of this site (the very people Boris is hitting out against) are rather clever really. So just what is Boris talking about? Well, for one, he looks to sensationalise things a bit and use some very 'witty' alliteration. "Say no to Nintendo. It is time to garrotte the Game Boy and paralyse the PlayStation" Bollocks Boris.

"They become like blinking lizards, motionless, absorbed, only the twitching of their hands showing they are still conscious. These machines teach them nothing." Perhaps dear old Boris has never heard of the Wii, or seen a child watching TV, or an adult watching TV, or anyone watching TV for that matter. All forms of audio-visual entertainment do to an extent zombify people. You do just sit and watch a glowing box flash and make noises. So if you're going to attack video games, a proud and exciting industry, attack TV too and DVD and pretty much every form of contemporary electronic entertainment. And what's wrong with vegetating? Why do we always have to be stimulated, learning and doing something that is deemed productive, esteemed and worthwhile?

There is no recognised link between video games and a lack of literacy. In my view it is poor parenting. If you play video games for ten hours a week that's about an hour and a half a day, tops. And you could up that to three hours on a Saturday and spread the rest around the week. If you're a good enough parent, you can control (to an extent) what they do and structure a healthy and fulfilling childhood. It doesn't mean country walks, visits to see the grandparents and board-games on a Friday night, it just means normality. If you let your children be vegetables then they invariably will. Sit a thirteen year old in front of a TV with a book in their hand and any normal child will watch the TV for hours, totally ignoring the book. It isn't that video games are the devil incarnate, it is that parents are invariably idiotic.

Instant messaging, MySpace and the Internet are far more rife with examples of illiteracy than video games. And don't get me started on what some people use as English in SMS messages. Illiteracy is everywhere and video games has nothing to do with it. Once again, our beloved industry is being used as a scapegoat. If it doesn't make you dumb it makes you violent, socially inept or acne ridden and smelly. Whatever next? It is time for people like Boris to stand up and accept some hard truths. Children are idiots because the education system is failing. Children are idiots because parents are failing. Children are idiots because society is structured in such a way that it is painfully easy to be an idiot and even more easy to not to any work. But so many young people are wonderfully intelligent and perfectly literate. To attack video games as the centre of all evil is such a weak argument.

Anyone who can complete Twilight Princess is really quite clever. Anyone who can pick up a Wii remote and enjoy Wii Sports isn't zombified and idiotic. You flail your arms about, you laugh, you have a joke and you are more active than you ever are when simply watching TV. So why not topple the television and destroy the DVD, dear Boris? And heck, that's without even mentioning Brain Training.

So, do video games intrinsically make you an idiotic, unblinking horrible little idiot with rotted brains and total illiteracy? Surely it is more a case of political brain-rot, lies, inadequate education and MPs who spout eminently tedious trollop on a regular basis. Video games are not even a vaguely comparable evil. Swing your battle-axe elsewhere Boris, and can the crap.

Hound: "One Man and his dog went to a meadow, the dog got bored, ran back home and became a journo."

>> Hound Archive: Do the timewarp on previous issues of this column.